Tax resolution
Tax Resolution (first revealed on Feb 26, 2007) : From: "Dan Sullivan" Founder's Plan Dan Sullivan presented "The Founder's Plan" for property tax reform at various meetings, including the 2006 Ohio Libertarian Convention. It gets high praise from Libertarian founder David Nolan. Talk's title: The Key to Total Tax Reduction General advantages of The Founders Plan: http://savingcommunities.org/foundersplan/ America's Founders (the real ones who led the revolution and set up the first government) pushed this plan: http://savingcommunities.org/foundersplan/whyfounders.html Proposed Resolution offered by Dan Sullivan: Whereas it is the opinion of the Libertarian Party: 1.) That the centralization of taxing power has always led to the centralization of control, 2.) That centralized governments are less competent to respond to local conditions and local preferences, 3.) That freedom-loving citizens are less able to migrate from a controlling, tax-wasting state than from a controlling, tax-wasting municipality, but that they still do so at the state's expense, 4.) That sales taxes drive away business and are burdensome to the poor, 5) That Delaware has no general sales tax, and that the region of Pennsylvania within 15 miles of the Delaware border is consequently a disaster area for retail sales, 6.) That income taxes drive away residents and are burdensome to the middle class, 7.) That both sales and income taxes cost most home owners far more over their lifetimes than property taxes that raise the same revenue, 8.) That other states have suffered from unstable real estate prices, increased bankruptcies, job losses and general economic decline after shifting from property taxes to sales and income taxes, 9.) That land value tax is the most viable local tax for general revenues, 10.) That land value tax is the only general-revenue tax that costs most home owners less than property taxes, 11.) That land value tax is the only tax that does not punish individual property owners for creating jobs, producing wealth or making improvements to their properties, 12.) That 20 Pennsylvania taxing jurisdictions have adopted shifts to land value tax, and that each of them has enjoyed increased growth and development following the shift, 13.) That reliance on land value tax instead of property, income and sales taxes reduces the rationale for government subsidies for projects to stimulate economic development, 14.) That economic development subsidies are, by their very nature, arbitrary interferences with the market that are prone to waste, corruption and unintended consequences, 15.) That economic development subsidies have consistently transferred tax revenue from ordinary taxpayers and small businesses to large corporations, and that these subsidized corporations often destroy more jobs than they create. 16.) That land value tax gives the competitive advantage back to smaller farmers, smaller merchants, and smaller manufacturers, who are more land-efficient than their large corporate competitors. 17.) That eight winners of the Nobel Prize for economics, including James Buchanan, Milton Friedman, Franco Modigliani, Paul Samuelson,Herbert Simon, Robert Solow, James Tobin and William Vickrey have endorsed land value tax as superior to other taxes, 18.) That many great historical figures either advocated land value tax, condemned holding idle, untaxed land off the market, or both. ** 19.) That these historical figures include Aristotle, Newton D. Baker, Peter Barnes, Charles Austin Beard, Frederick Bastiat, Ambrose Bierce, William Blackstone, Ralph Borsodi, Justice Louis Brandeis, Harry Gunnison Brown, Henry Thomas Buckle, William F. Buckley, Thomas Carlyle, Andrew Carnegie, Frank Choderov, Winston Churchill, Richard Cobden, Confucius, Clarence Darrow, Michael Davitt, John Dewey, Senator Paul Douglas, W.E.B. DuBois, Patrick Edward Dove, Albert Einstein, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joseph Fels, Henry Ford, Mason Gaffney, William Lloyd Garrison, Henry George, George Gilder, Silvio Gesell, William Godwin, Samuel Gompers, Garrett Hardin, Theodor Herzl, Karl Hess, John Hospers, Elbert Hubbard, Aldous Huxley, Tom Johnson, Helen Keller, Alexander Kerensky, Martin Luther King, Jr., Michale Kinsley, David L. Lawrence, Emma Lazarus, Robert LeFevre, Abraham Lincoln, John C Lincoln, John Locke, David Lloyd-George, Rev Dr. Edward McGlynn, James Michener (Gen McArthur's economic aide), Russell Means, John Stuart Mill, Raymond Moley, Moses, Ralph Nader, Scott Nearing, David Nolan, Bishop Thomas Nulty, William Ogilvie, George Orwell, Albert Jay Nock, William Pitt, Plato, Louis F. Post, Terence Powderly, James E Thorold Rogers Theodore Roosevelt, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Lord Bertrand Russell, Upton Sinclair, George Bernard Shaw, Adam Smith, Philip Snowden, Herbert Spencer, Baruch Spinoza, Lysander Spooner, Peter Stuyvesant, Jonathan Swift, Dr Sun Yat-Sen, Tacitus, Count Leo Tolstoy, Benjamin Tucker, Mark Twain, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Alfred Russel Wallace, Brand Whitlock and Woodrow Wilson. *** The land value tax has been endorsed by both Ralph Nader and David Nolan. The land value tax was also championed in Pittsburgh and in Allentown by the very liberal ex-Congressman William Coyne and the very conservative ex-Congressman Pat Toomey. ** 20.) That taxing land value was endorsed by many of America's founders, including William Penn, Tom Paine and Thomas Jefferson. 20.) That Philadelphia's first tax was a land value tax, adopted unanimously, 21,) That the Articles of Confederation, that was adopted by the same institution as the Declaration of Independence, called for the government of the United States to be funded from a tax on land values, 22.) That New Hampshire, the freest state in the union, has no general sales tax and no general income tax, and relies more on real estate taxes than any other state in the nation, and 23.) That the largest migration across a state line is from people fleeing Massachusetts, which has low property taxes but high income and sales taxes, to New Hampshire, Be it resolved that the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania: 1.) Opposes any shift from local taxation to state taxation. 2.) Supports reductions in state taxation, even if it means increases in local taxation. 3.) Opposes any shift from property taxation to income or sales tax. 4.) Supports replacing property tax with land value tax. 5.) Supports replacing other local taxes with land value tax. 6.) Supports tax reduction through spending reductions, and particularly reductions in state taxes. Insights: The Keys to Total Tax Reduction. The wrong kind of tax leads to increased spending for several reasons. * The purpose of a good portion of the spending is to ease problems caused by the tax itself. * Separating who pays from who benefits creates a constant pressure from those who benefit to levy more and more taxes (on others, of course). * A local tax on property owners is a tax on those who are most strongly resolved to get the maximum benefits for the minimum tax. Insights * If government spending is too high, it will be unduly burdensome regardless of the method of revenue collection. Q&As PA's school boards can set school budgets, tax rates and issue bond obligations without approval by the voters. That's a big, big complaint from many in PA. To migrate to a system land value taxes, would it be necessary for voters to also gain powers to approve any kinds of land tax increases authorized by local school boards? I guess the more general question would be ask what other changes would be necessary in PA to implement such a system of taxation. Mark, I agree philosophically that the voters in a jurisdiction should have a right to approve total spending. However, they do not have that right as it stands and are not likely to get it, especially from this legislature. My worry right now is that they are on the verge of making the tax system much, much worse. I would support a separate resolution saying that, in the absence of a referendum authorizing a particular amount of spending, the default authorization would be 5% less than that of the prior year. Half the salaries of elected officials would be withheld until it is demonstrated that they did not exceed their budget. If they exceed the budget due to what they consider a legitimate emergency, they would still have to go to the voters for a post-hoc confirmation that the emergency was indeed legitimate.